Lights: Darkbuster experience

After much angst and investigation at getting video lights for my Ocean Images housing, I ended up going with two Darkbuster 24W HID lights. Cheap attachment to housing, ability to sell as independent tech lights rather than a dedicated light package and appeared to work well from others experience.

My experience:

Bought two lights from a reputable online dealer. On arrival, both lights did not work at all. Ended up sending to manufacturer US rep as they were in same state. They sent me two new lights after a little delay though communicative.

Dive #1 - Turned on both lights. They come on. Did not want to scare everything away while on dusk dive, so turned off. 10 mins later, turned on again, only one comes on. Left on. Ended up separated from group in bad vis as darkness falls, so I surfaced normally. Max depth 34 feet. While coming up nice and slow to safety stop depth, bad light started emitting bubbles. Back on board, light has water inside. Inspection revealed crossthreading of lens. You can see where it sticks out on one light and the other light is smooth all the way around. Water won't come out and we could not get the lens off, though not surprised as I believe they use a vise.

Now to deal with manufacturer.

Due to rush before dive ended up using supplied video diffuser. Yes, still too much spotlight though it did work for a cool little cuttlefish who was making like coral.

Hey Shasta,

Sorry to hear of your bad luck with the lights. Don't be to discouraged with them, It's just a bad string of events.

I've just got back from diving the Great Barrier Reef in Australia for a week on a liveaboard and had my 2 DB's down to 30m/90ft 4 times a day and the only problem I encurred was the recharge time during surface intervals, and had one go flat on 2 dives. Got some great footage that needs to be colated but in all they work great.

Yeah the supplied diffuser is hopeless. Wagsy suggested to me to cut out and use the white plastic from a Yogurt container which i did and use. Although they don't let enough light through in daylight conditions. So only use these ones at night. I have a second set made from a crappy cheap plastic plate from the supermarket. The type you'd use for camping or a BBQ. Much thinner and don't have any hot spots like the supplied ones.

Send them back again, get it fixed and give them another go. It will be worth it.

Good Luck.

Gee.... seem you are off to a bad start.

Rule number one is always double check things before you take them under if back from a service or even brand new.

Always make sure you have the power on the wall turned off before you put the little charge plug in the back of it as it can short and blow the little car type fuse inside which will stop the light from turning on.

Maybe that's why they did not work from new.

Did 54 dives last year on a shoot, many to 30 /40 meters and mine did not miss abeat.

Good to hear yours worked probie, yes they are not too good for daytime unless deep.

What boat did you go out on?

That would be the Komodo Dancer.

Yes, I'm not saying they're all bad but I am questioning their quality control.

The lights were dead as doornail with something rolling around inside the housing when I received them, and didn't turn on straight out of the box. You can imagine my chagrin at not one but both $350 lights being bad. I had already noted your "plug in the light, then to the wall" tip so I was sure not to make that mistake.

Yep, I should have tested them underwater before going but I did test them above water and they came on fine. The problem I saw was some flickering and changing color temp because of that. By the time I got the working lights back from them, I didn't have much opportunity to get underwater though a pool might have discovered the problem.

However, my point is not as much that I took them on the trip and they failed but that this should not have been a problem that I needed to look for. My failure rate was 100%, then 50%. On two tries. I'm thinking once I get them to work, they'll continue working, but they didn't make one dive.

So your mileage may vary and I'm glad that others have had success but I had some problems. Let's see how they handle it now. They haven't returned my call yet.

Gee.... seem you are off to a bad start.

Rule number one is always double check things before you take them under if back from a service or even brand new.

 

Always make sure you have the power on the wall turned off before you put the little charge plug in the back of it as it can short and blow the little car type fuse inside which will stop the light from turning on.

Maybe that's why they did not work from new.

 

Did 54 dives last year on a shoot, many to 30 /40 meters and mine did not miss abeat.

 

Good to hear yours worked probie, yes they are not too good for daytime unless deep.

What boat did you go out on?

Gee sounds like you got a couple lemons all right. Unfortunately that can happen allot these days with many things.

They are cheap lights though.

Hope your dealer does the right thing by you.

I just finished a shoot with a TV mob in Townsvile QLD, charted the whole livaboard for it...plenty of room...

Took the old Darkbusters which worked a treat for the night and Yongala dives again.

I should have one of these new self contained 35/50 HID Amphibico lights soon to compare with the old Darkbuster.

Good luck and lets us know how you go.

What's up Wagsy - you already order those lights from Amphibico? Curious what you find as I'm thinking of getting a pair too. Guess we'll let you be the guinea pig. (Just realized I wrote this from Jen's account)

Bryce

Back in Perth now..... Man drunk too many little red wine bottles on the plane though.... I think the hostie like me.....

Hi Bryce

Yes I have one on the way so will make a post about it when it arrives with my thoughts comparing the light beam to a Darkbuster.

You know on this shoot the other guy had 4 x led lights but the Darkbusters with my home made yogurt diffusers were better than what he was putting out. I cannot remember the brand he was using though. Being 1 meter from the sand with the 94 degree Phenom port on I get no hots spots with the Darkbusters/yogurt diffusers, but that how I like to shoot. You need to take the diffusers out if you want longer beam penetration.

Shasta_man any luck with yours yet?

Did 54 dives last year on a shoot, many to 30 /40 meters and mine did not miss abeat.

 

Good to hear yours worked probie, yes they are not too good for daytime unless deep.

What boat did you go out on?

Beck and I were on Taka for 5 days out to cod hole and the likes. Had the DB's on every dive just in case. Yeah they dont penetrate to much in the shallows but get down to 15 - 30m helps a whole lot. Found quite a few long swim through caves and some very tight tunnels with them which would have been passed without.

Was a grueling schedule, 14 dives in 3 days/1 morning. Especially with an injured foot. But great none the less.

Wagsy Do you use you DB's as your only light source or use some other... not including the new one on order.

Peter.

The Taka trip is fun, big boat and easy to dive from.

You don't need lights for shallow tropical clear dives really anyhow.

Yes I just use two Darkbusters for now, WB the camera abit warm and jump in flipping up the URPRO filter if needed down deeper.

Lock shutter at 50i, 0-3db, auto exposure and locked off on full wide for most shots going to auto focus if needed.

If you spend too much time messing around with settings one may miss the shots.

What did you do to your foot?

So someone else is finally bringing out a "self contained" 35/50w HID...this technology has been available in Australia for two years...

What did you do to your foot?

Dropped an electrical switchboard on it mid Dec. 140kg from 1m onto the top of the foot. We were meant to be diving the Bligh Waters in Fiji for a week from the 5th Jan then back home to Sydney for 3 days then fly out to Cairns/Taka. Only made the Taka trip. Lucky though.. We were meant to be in Fiji during the recent flooding they had there. We would have been holed up in our rooms the whole time.. If our rooms are still there that is. Fate hey?

Oh foot?... No breaks but a torn ligament. I battled through and had a ball.

Hi all,

I've read so many posts about darkbuster that I'm a little bit confused

How do you managed to attach this light to the arms?

I did not find the darkbuster YS adaptor for selling on the net here in Europe.

Which YS adapter did you used?

Thank you in advance

PS

The famous yogurt diffuser is placed inside or outside the light glass?

Bye

Hi

There is a guy over here in AUS that sells them.

http://www.luxhid.com.au/index.cfm/details...arkbuster%20YS/

http://www.luxhid.com.au/index.cfm/details...camera_arm_set/

Maybe he can post one over?

Hey LJS,

I got my DB's from Luxhid as well. I'm in AUS and they turned up within 36hrs from interstate. They were really helpful and fast.

As with the mounts. I used the AD-UK from Ultra Light Controls Systems.

http://www.ulcs.com/strobes.html

Comes as a plate and 1" ball. The plate is the same shape as the slide mounts on the DB. BUT.... You will as I did have to file down one side of the plate to remove about 1-1 1/2 mm to fit the light. easily done. It took me about 15mins to file both so they were absolutaly perfect fit. I'm a bit an#l that way. But puts a ball on the lights to fit any arm system around.

P

Hi Guys,

tank you all.

I live in Italy so I'll apdapt a couple of ILCS YS.

Bye